FactCheck 2016, as in the previous elections, probed candidate’s position, platform and track record on key issues and agenda identified through consultations with organizations at the local and national levels.

A book chapter that discusses one of the challenges to Philippine democracy – poorly regulated campaign finance – highlighting the importance of making elections inclusive and democratic by making them competitive and fair.

For "Daang Matuwid" to be sustained, expanded and deepened, good governance has to become a norm; good governance practices must become common, not mere islands and best practices up for awards. Political party reforms, Freedom of Information (FoI) and the anti-dynasty law are mechanisms that will make "Daang Matuwid" a norm that will bring about change that can be felt by ordinary citizens.

PoP 2013 is a data pooling initiative of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) that aims to arm the citizens with facts and data on candidates for and selected critical issues relevant to the 2013 elections, thereby, facilitating and empowering their engagement as political actors during elections.

The study conducted by the Philippine research team aims to baseline the organizational performance and stability of selected political parties in the Philippines. From the parties’ profiles, we extracted some comparative points that will allow elucidation on the overall picture of party performance and stability in the Philippines.

An administration’s reform-mindedness or reform-orientation will be determined by its demonstrated commitment to reforming the ways by which power in government is constituted, with the elections being the most basic formal mechanism to give and enable such power.

The weakness of parties vis-à-vis personalities and families has a lot of ill-effects on democracy. One of the more serious problems it causes has something to do with making accountability in the exercise of power precarious and extremely difficult. Personalities and families operate in private spaces that are away from the public eye, hence are protected from public scrutiny or any accountability checks. Abuse of power and sheer bad, ill-informed decisions of politicians involving matters of national importance are at the heart of bad governance in the country, which makes accountability one of the biggest pre-requisites of governance and political reform.

In the Philippines, since the end of martial law, civil society has been hailed as “the savior of governance,” playing the roles underperformed by the government or filling the gaps in the services needed by the people. One of the most crucial elements of civil society engagement in the Philippines is its reform work that is varied and encompassing. These actors constitute a large portion of what is being referred to as reform movements in the Philippines, which consist also of the reformers in government, political parties, local government units and other arenas.

Our premise why dynasties are problematic in democracy is it undermines accountability since decisions that affect the public are made in private sphere (the family). Hence, our working definition of political dynasty is it exists when members of a (nuclear) family occupies seats that have direct mandate to check and balance each other and have legal authority over other means of accountability. It is a state of political monopoly that cancels out checks and balance mechanisms.

This policy study is a follow-up to two cause-and-effect studies of PODER on election-related violence, one in Abra and the other in Nueva Ecija. The project involves scanning of ERV in selected hotspots, documentation of successful civil society initiatives to prevent ERV and policy assessment study of government response to election-related violence, particularly its major perpetrators: loose firearms, partisan armed groups and political dynasties.